Station
A station is the moment a planet appears motionless in the sky, just before changing its apparent direction. It is called a retrograde station when the planet is about to turn back, and a direct station when it resumes its normal course. Seen from Earth, the planet seems to halt for a few days around the same degree. Astrologers hold this stationary degree to be especially intense and emphasized.
The suspended instant
Before turning around, a planet slows until it seems to stop: that is the station. Like a ball thrown into the air that hangs still for a fraction of a second before falling. This apparent halt concentrates the planet's energy on one precise degree, and a chart with a sensitive point at that degree often feels it more strongly.
Before and after the motion
The retrograde station opens a time of review, of rereading; the direct station signals that movement resumes forward. With Mercury retrograde, for instance, it is the station days that are felt most, both on the way in and on the way out. Read them as turning points, threshold moments where something reverses.
Sources
- , Planets in Transit (1976)
- , Retrograde Planets (1992)